by D. J. Gelner
I cocked my head and struggled for a response, but could only manage a swallow.
“The truth of the matter is that Trent Albertson was absolutely correct. What happened, happened. But the harsh reality is that it’s not just ‘the past’— it’s all of time. Past, present, and future. It has happened. It is happening, right now. And it will happen, exactly as it should. There is no changing any time, since it is all history, from a far enough point in the future.
“But still, someone had to go and ‘create’ the history that we now so…” she waved an arm around the plush environs, “…enjoy. At some point, you still had to actually travel through time to all of those locales and do exactly what you were supposed to do, what you always did. And the best part of it all, the part that you didn’t even consider until just now, just this moment…” she levelled those stark green eyes at me.
“…Is that you made it happen.”
“No…you set us on the track. You told us where to go—” I stammered.
“And you interpreted things as I thought you would. As I knew you would. Each step leading you down a darker path, ensuring that some day ChronoSaber would come to fruition, and that all you see around you would become mine.”
“Impossible,” the realisation hit me like a ton of feathers, each one individually harmless, but collectively crushing. “But then—”
“Yes,” she licked her lips. It was almost as if she was getting some kind of weird sexual pleasure out of my realisation.
“If future technology…can be brought…to the past…” I had a bit of trouble forming the words.
“Go on—” she said, breathlessly.
“Bloomington didn’t invent time travel, did he?” I blurted it out. “Neither did Corcoran!”
She nodded.
“It was me. I invented the time machine, after all. And you brought it back to them, didn’t you?”
“Bravo,” her voice was low and husky. I half expected Helene to break out a cigarette. “But don’t go patting yourself on the back too hard. Where do you think that your quantum computer came from? You certainly didn’t build it, nor will you. The truth is that once time travel has been deregulated and popularised, all future technology is available from that point forward. Medigel, holotrans—these aren’t from a mere five or even ten years in your future, but are the result of long stretches of breakthroughs in research that have been brought back—”
“Technology…” it was barely a whisper as I released it into the world, disregarding her diatribe. “So then why is there no medigel in my time?”
“You’re missing the point!” Helene shook her head. “There likely is. But the reason it hasn’t been manufactured is a combination of many factors, from lacking the technology to reverse engineer such advanced parts, to reliance on other advanced technologies to enable their usage. You saw exactly ‘why’ bringing technology to the past could be so problematic when you had such a devil of a time showing those savage Mayans anything on your tablet.
“As for anything that slips through the cracks,” she turned toward the window, “the universe has a funny way of taking care of things. Like why we can’t go back and assassinate Hitler, or with that poor fellow that met the business end of one of Constantine’s guard’s pikes. That professor had a handgun, but he was utterly powerless because the universe, history, God; whatever you want to call it wouldn’t allow it to happen. Couldn’t allow it to happen. Because, my dearest Finny…” Helene turned to face me and put both hands on the desk. She bent over to reveal a good amount of (still shapely, mind you) cleavage, “…it…didn’t…happen!”
I was beginning to see what she was getting at, but, “What did…” I felt a dull pain begin at the base of my skull and moved my hand to rub it away, “…what did Corcoran—?”
“Haven’t you figured it out yet?” Helene interrupted. “Why the Commander’s ‘bathroom break’ has taken so long?”
“Ricky…would never…” My head was now fully spinning, as if I had polished off a whole bottle of whisky.
She chuckled, “Oh, but he would! He never told you his mission, did he? Such a pity that a ‘brilliant’ scientist such as yourself couldn’t figure it out before, hmm? How’s the scotch, by the way?”
I eyed the half-empty glass of whisky on the armrest and mustered up barely enough strength to knock it to the floor.
“The Vizier?” I asked, barely a gasp.
“How else was Ricky going to find out about the extent of the war? To realise how devastating it would be? To make the choice that he had to?”
“France?” I croaked out.
“Can’t have the Nazis winning that war, now could we? ChronoSaber wouldn’t do too well under a fascist regime. Those two officers you three dispatched were far more crucial to the German war effort than even Violette could imagine. Not to mention all of the yeoman’s work that wretched little Bloomington put in after you two left.”
“And…now?” I asked.
“I think you very well know, ‘what now?’” she said. “‘Now,’ the Commander returns to the past a hero. A time travelling commando, adored by all for ending the war, or I should say ending the fighting, a fine surrogate for you and all that you’ve accomplished. And you…well…without your time machine and my support, what exactly do you have?” She had slowly made her way over to me and grabbed me by the cheeks like an overbearing aunt might.
“But—”
“I know, I know…’but if he returns to 2012, how does no one know about him?’ I said he returns to the past, not 2012…”
For whatever reason, the words still didn’t register, though, as will soon become clear, they should have. I blame whatever she used to spike my drink.
“Why…harm…me…?”
“Jesus Henrietta Christ!” she exclaimed.
“Trent…Albertson,” I could barely whisper.
She smirked, “Speaking of which, are you even sure that he’s really Jesus Christ? Maybe he’s a mascot, a flunky we pay to parade around as much,” Her face drew taut and grave before she broke into a smile. “Or maybe he was telling the truth, and his whore of a grandmother wasn’t influential enough to prevent his stoned escapades. It’s of no further import to you.”
“You…bitch…” I croaked at her.
“Where were we now? Ah, yes. Why leave you stranded in the future? Why, Phineas, my dear, this is why it’s a good thing that you stuck to your science and didn’t take your father’s advice to go into business. If you ran the most successful business in the world, a company with a monopoly on a luxury industry with the highest market cap and insane margins, would you want the only person in history who could conceivably launch a competitor running around in the past, stirring shit up? Hmm?
“I’ve given you enough poison to kill you. It really would tie things up rather nicely. Unfortunately, I have a sneaking suspicion that it won’t fully work out.”
My mind flashed back to Mayan times, and I was suddenly glad that I had to tear the packet of medigel open with my teeth and ingested some of the pineapple-tasting goop.
“Better for you to be here, under my finger, where my operatives can keep tabs on you, in whatever alley you choose to rot away in for the rest of your miserable days. Even the mere mention of your name in the history books may lead some other fabulously wealthy individual to track you down and offer to bankroll you, hence why I must withhold the recognition that you so desperately seek, leaving you safely anonymous.”
Her smile brightened, “The beauty of it all is that I know that you never do form a competitor. You couldn’t have—the universe simply won’t allow it. It hasn’t happened, nor will it. The universe has forgotten you, given up on you, left you as a sacrifice to the greater good. But just to make sure, I’ll keep tabs on you, and ensure that you never amount to anything again…” she brought her lips tantalisingly close to mine. Though I was repulsed, I couldn’t move.
“…Personally.”
At that moment, I coul
d barely form a coherent thought, yet I knew. Somehow, I had always known.
She was right.
That’s why she had sent me to Nicaea to witness the academic run through like a kebab, no matter what he had brought back with him. That’s another reason we were forced to pursue the Vizier, and to see what chaos our run-in with the Mayans would bring about. History was fixed—it was fixed against me! No matter what I did, I would be lost to history, not even a footnote in the Commander’s daring tale of survival.
My last thought before everything faded to black was simple, yet somehow poetic:
This may be my last thought…ever…
Chapter Thirty-One
I awoke propped against a wall with a splitting headache. A pedestrian flung several coins at my face.
“Poor guy,” the woman said as she slinked by (with a rather well-toned behind, might I add).
The cool breeze blew on my face and shot up. I felt for my sidearm, but found none. I rifled through my pockets, but they were empty. My tattered suit added to the fiction that I was, in fact, a derelict.
I looked toward the end of the wall against which I sat, only to find two ChronoSaber guards talking into their earpieces, as if to underscore Helene…excuse me, “My Benefactor’s” point. Pardon me for failing to interchange the two during our tale, dear reader, but I’m still struggling with the full magnitude of the realisation myself.
They may be watching me, I thought. But eventually, they’ll slip up, get careless. It didn’t dawn on me until later that the last man who had said that, my erstwhile Benefactor, Jacob Harvey, ended up dead by poison tack to the cheek.
I stood up but didn’t bother to dust myself off. An empty cup sat next to me, filled with bills and coins. I greedily emptied the haul into my pockets. A glass holosign in front of the building practically exploded with flashing colour.
“Museum of Unnatural History,” the sign read. Though, admittedly, by any other standard, it was a stately-enough looking building, and apparently a proper place of learning, and not some disreputable “Ripley’s”-type freak show.
I looked past the end of the museum only to see the ChronoSaber tower a block away.
Maybe it’s still here! I thought. I felt on my face for my glasses (which my still-paralytic facial muscles could not discern due to the continued blurriness of vision I experienced) and found them. As I raced toward the open space opposite the tower, I pushed the button on the temple of the smart specs to reveal the location of the time machine.
Thankfully, they still worked.
Not even a second later, I was sorry that they did.
The ship was gone.
I slowed to a trot as I approached the green space, which seemed oddly out of place. I noticed a sign in the corner closest to me that I had either not seen previously, or had subconsciously ignored. As I read the words upon it, the pallor drained from my face.
“Richard J. Corcoran Park,” the sign read.
“No…no…it can’t be…” I rushed back toward the ChronoSaber tower. This time, the guards leveled what appeared to be LR-15s on me, and though a mature T-Rex could suffer their bolts relatively unscathed, I feared that my somewhat softer skin may not fare as well.
Thinking quickly, I instead bolted for the museum, up the steps and to the ticket window.
“One please,” I emptied my pockets into the automatic ticket machine, and it spit out one ducat, along with several bills that I hadn’t the time or care to collect. I sprinted into the “museum,” which was really a long row of holodisplays. I settled behind the first empty one and it began its pre-canned spiel.
“Welcome to ChronoSaber’s Museum of Unnatural History,” a warm female voice greeted me. “In these displays, you will find all recorded information about time travel as we know it through…” a short pause was followed by a somewhat more mechanical tone, “July 7, 2042.” A canned graphic of a cartoon cake with ten birthday candles flashed in front of me, followed by the sound of a noisemaker and then a slightly varied rip-off of the “Happy Birthday” song.
Cheap bastards… I thought.
“Welcome to the tenth anniversary of time travel! As you know, per an agreement between ChronoSaber and the U.S. Government, the full archives of time travel files could not be opened until ten years after the return of the first time traveler, Commander Richard J. Corcoran. We are pleased to announce that he returned safely ten years ago yesterday, on July 6, 2032. As a result, you are among the first people to have access to these exciting archives!”
I looked around at the rather sparse museum. Perhaps a couple of “media types” browsed alongside me, but I was surprised that there wasn’t a larger crowd perusing the displays.
“Of course, you can always access the archives on your mobile device at www.chronosaber.com.”
Of course… I echoed the computer’s voice inside my head.
“How may I assist you?” The computer asked. At least this one had the chutzpah to talk to me to my face, and not hide behind a console like that insolent little shit of a ship’s computer aboard my now-stolen time machine.
“Narrative account of Commander Corcoran’s successful first time jump.”
The computer thought for an instant before a holovid materialised in front of me.
“Commander Richard J. Corcoran,” a picture of the Commander, if cleaned up a bit, flashed up in the display. “An American hero like no other.
“Born in what is now O’Fallon, Missouri in 1973, Commander Richard J. Corcoran succeeded in life despite numerous early hardships. His parents—”
“Computer, fast forward to details of time travel voyage,” I said. Hopefully my tone conveyed my annoyance.
“Commander Corcoran left Montauk Naval Base on December 21, 2012 with Mission Specialist Steven Bloomington, in an operation known only as ‘Project Omega.’ Unfortunately, Specialist Bloomington was lost in action when marauding ancient warriors ambushed the duo,” An artist’s (or I should say “cartoonist’s”) rendition of a caricatured Corcoran and Bloomington firing guns into a circle of stereotypical “native warriors” came to life on the screen. “Though both fought valiantly, Bloomington was unable to fight off the advancing horde—”
“Fucking liar!” I practically yelled it at the display. “Where am I in all of this?”
“You are currently in level one, main gallery,” the computer replied in its even tone.
“God damn smart ass!” I shouted, and started to get odd looks from the guards. “Please…continue…”
“After fighting off the natives, Commander Corcoran jumped to several other locations, in search of Project Omega’s true objective: advanced weaponry for the United States military.
“Having succeeded in his mission, Commander Corcoran returned in his time machine, though due to the early uncertainty with plotting time travel, he landed some twenty years later, some three hundred miles south in Baltimore, Maryland.”
“What a fucking coincidence!” I yelled once more.
“There, he met with ChronoSaber founder Zane Garrett before being rushed into quarantine. After being released from quarantine, Corcoran granted a single interview request, to CBS’s Lara Logan, some five years after his return before he disappeared into seclusion once more.”
The computer pulled up the interview footage. After Corcoran (who didn’t look a day older than when I had last seen him) attempted to charm the (still rather stunning, might I add) Ms. Logan for several minutes, the conversation turned toward the topic in which I was most interested.
“Commander, you’ve been very reluctant to speak publicly about what you’ve termed your time travel ordeal,” Logan said.
Corcoran forced a weak smile. Gone was the rakish charm that I had come to expect from the man, replaced with a vulnerability, almost a weakness. He took a deep breath.
“Well, Lara, you know I can’t get too much into that. The military still has a gag order on us for another five years. Not to mention that…” he looked
into the distance for a second. His twang…it’s gone… I thought. Another huckster. Another charlatan.
“…I’ll tell you one thing: one word I’ve grown to hate through all of this is ‘hero.’ I’m not terribly proud of what I’ve done. Good men have been lost along the way, not only to this world, but to history. That, in and of itself, is a great tragedy.
“But the greater tragedy is this idea that time travel will become a panacea to live fantasy lives or change the world, damn what the scientists say. It’s not. It’s just another way for folks with enough money to be foolish enough to think that they can leave their mark on history. And the shitkicker of the whole thing is that all the while, no matter how hard you try to change it, no matter how powerful you think your grip is on the situation, history will end up leaving its mark on you.”
Though the image of the Commander began to tear up, I couldn’t help myself. I balled my hand into a fist and struck the display, full force. It splintered somewhat, though I think the sharp “crack” that I had heard was one of my metacarpals. My expression, though, remained taut and unchanged.
The crack of the display aroused the suspicion of the guards, who spoke into their headsets and jogged over to get me. I instinctively reached for my holster, content to go out in a blaze of glory, only to realise that I no longer had my sidearm. I played the gesture off as if I was dusting myself off. I raised my hands as the guards approached.
“I’m leaving…I’m leaving…” I said. I backed toward the entrance several steps before I launched into a full-out sprint out of the door.
I ran until I found myself once more in Richard J. Corcoran Park. The guards must have been content to have run a dangerous derelict out of their jurisdiction, and didn’t pursue. I fumbled with my glasses once more to ensure that the ship was actually gone. As the glasses changed their tint, I still saw no sign of the craft.
I did, however, find a curiously-shaped package with a red bow stashed behind one of the legs of the park’s sign. A letter was attached to the bow with the word “Doc” printed in block letters upon it.